Founded : December 2000 Created By : Esther Aquino and Joseph Garcia
DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF ESPERANZA AQUINO
Founded : December 2000 Created By : Esther Aquino and Joseph Garcia
DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF ESPERANZA AQUINO
July 7th, 2005
In Today's Edition
Since there ain't too much going on I've decided to take next week off.
I hope you all have a safe and pleasant weekend.
Born on July 7th
Michelle Kwan (1980)
Cree Summer (1969)
Shelley Duvall (1949)
Ringo Starr (1940)
Doc Severinsen (1927)
Pierre Cardin (1922)
Born on July 10th
Reco Daste
Born on July 11th
Cameryn Hernandez
Passport
An elderly American absentmindedly arrived at French customs at Paris airport and fumbled for his passport. "You have been to France before Monsieur?", the customs officer asked sarcastically.
The ancient Yank admitted that he had been to France before.
"Then you should know enough to have your passport ready for inspection", snapped the irate official.
The American said that the last time he came to France he did not have to show his passport.
"Impossible, old man. You Americans always have to show your passports on arrival in France."
The old American gave the Frenchman a long hard look. "I assure you, young man, that when I came ashore on Omaha Beach in Normandy on D Day in 1944, there was no Frenchman on the beach asking to see my passport!"
Today's useless fact - Where do churches get holy water?
We dipped into the Lukol Catholicism category and were blessed with many results. We soon learned that the Catholic church makes a fresh batch of holy water each week.
Holy water is simply water that has been blessed by a priest. Christian churches have used holy water since the fifth century, if not earlier. In many religions, water symbolizes a spiritual cleansing, and indeed, one of the oldest Christian rituals is baptism, in which a new convert is dipped into or doused with water. In the Bible, Jesus's baptism took place in a river, but eventually Christian baptisms moved inside churches and utilized basins of water specially blessed for the purpose.
Baptism is not the only use for holy water. Catholic churches bless water weekly for use during Sunday services, and holy water is used to bless anything worth sanctifying. The Baltimore Catechism describes how a priest prays over the water to bless it and provide protection for those using it. The water is intended to inspire devotion, and Catholic churches provide holy water near the doors so attendees can take a few drops and make the sign of the cross to show their faith.
Holy water is also made on the Saturday before Easter. This Easter water receives a more elaborate blessing than everyday holy water and is often reserved for baptisms.
Before the Second Vatican Council modernized Catholic rituals in the 1960s, priests added salt to make holy water. The salt was exorcised of possible evil spirits and then mixed with water during the blessing.
The Buzzword for July 7th
exasperate \ig-ZASS-puh-rayt\ verb
What does it mean?
: to make angry : annoy, irritate
How do you use it?
The rain through our vacation was disappointing, but it was
our constant complaining that exasperated Mom.
Are you a word wiz?
Without becoming exasperated, see if you can find a synonym
for "exasperate."
A. worry
B. soothe
C. prod
D. nettle
Answer:
"Exasperate," "nettle," "provoke," and "peeve" mean to create
a feeling of anger or annoyance. "Exasperate" suggests
causing annoyance and extreme impatience, as in "His tendency
to put things off exasperates his family." "Nettle" suggests a
sharp but passing annoyance or stinging, as in "Her selfish
attitude nettled several people." "Provoke" implies an
arousing of strong annoyance or anger, as in "The rude
remarks were made solely to provoke her." "Peeve" suggests
whiny irritation or discontent, as in "The toddler was peeved
at being refused a cookie."
Today's Jigsaw Puzzle
CLICK HERE
Crowned Crane
That's all for now. Take care everybody.
The following is what appeared in Wednesday's edition
In Today's Edition
Hospitality is making your guests feel at home, even if you wish they were.
Born on July 6th
Tia and Tamera Mowry (1978)
George W. Bush (1946)
Sylvester Stallone (1946)
Ned Beatty (1937)
Dalai Lama (1935)
Della Reese (1932)
Janet Leigh (1927)
Merv Griffin (1925)
Bill Haley (1925)
William Schallert (1922)
Nancy Reagan (1921)
Laverne Andrews (1915)
John Paul Jones (1747)
"Yeah, I know."
There was this guy in a mental hospital. All day long he had his ear to the wall, listening. The doctor would watch this guy do this day after day. The doctor finally decided to see what the guy was listening to, so he put his ear up to the wall and listened. He heard nothing.
He turned to the mental patient and said, "I don't hear anything."
The mental patient said, "Yeah, I know. It's been like that for months!"
Today's useless fact - Can a person who is blind from birth "see images" in their dreams?
According to the Blind category, this question has inspired volumes of medical research dating back to the 19th century. People who are visually impaired from birth appear to lack visual imagery in their dreams. It's believed that the parts of their brains that register visual information remain dormant.
According to the fascinating article by Diego Kaski in the International Medical Students' Journal, even people who lose their sight early in childhood retain visual imagery in their dreams well into adulthood. However, this imagery fades over time.
Nevertheless, blind people do dream and often describe their dreams in terms of places and surroundings. An article from the University of Santa Cruz notes that blind dreams feature a "very high percentage of gustatory, olfactory, and tactual sensory references," something very unusual for sighted dreamers to experience.
The Buzzword for July 6th
coffee \KOFF-ee\ noun
What does it mean?
1 : a drink made from roasted and ground seeds of a tropical
tree or shrub related to the madder
2 : coffee seeds or a plant producing them
3 : a cup of coffee
How do you use it?
After he graduates from college, Jorge hopes to get a job
managing his family's coffee plantation in Brazil.
Are you a word wiz?
Which one of these languages do you think played a part in the
history of the word "coffee"?
A. Portuguese
B. Turkish
C. Chinese
D. Russian
Answer:
Time to wake up and smell the coffee -- Turkish coffee, that
is. "Coffee" traces back to Turkish and Italian. The parents
of "coffee," Turkish "kahve" and Italian "caffe," in turn
derive from the Arabic word "qahwa." The English names of
some other food items have Turkish origins as well. These
include the cubes of meat marinated and cooked on skewers
known as "shish kebab," as well as "caviar," the salted eggs
of a large fish that are usually served as an appetizer. The
name of the semisolid milk product we call "yogurt" was also
borrowed directly from Turkish.
Today's Jigsaw Puzzle
CLICK HERE
That's all for today. Tune in tomorrow for more incredible stuff.
The following is what appeared in Tuesday's edition
In Today's Edition
Did any of you catch the "Deep Impact" collision of comet Tempel 1? When I think about it, it just boggles my mind. To think that these scientists put an object into space and directed it to collide with a comet 83 million miles away. My hat goes off to NASA and JPL. What an accomplishment. Here are the latest pictures of "Deep Impact".
Comet Tempel 1 five minutes before impact
90 seconds before impact
Bulls eye at 23,000 MPH
Born on July 5th
Huey Lewis (1951)
Warren Oates (1928)
Georges Pompidou (1911)
Jean Cocteau (1889)
P.T. Barnum (1810)
Orangutan
One day the zoo-keeper noticed that the orangutan was reading two books -- the Bible and Darwin's Origin of Species.
In surprise he asked the ape, "Why are you reading both those books?"
"Well," said the orangutan, "I just wanted to know if I was my brother's keeper or my keeper's brother."
Today's useless fact - Can I really name a star?
To find out whether you can buy "a piece of sky" we turned to the links in the Lukol Star Names category and Lukol Astronomy Shopping category, and here's what we learned:
You can name any star you like, but it's virtually impossible to get anyone else, much the less international authorities, to recognize your star name. Many companies will gladly take your money so they can "register" your choice of name for a particular star. This star naming is promoted as a great gift for all occasions. But none of these companies have any authority over official star names.
The only body with the authority to name stars is the International Astronomical Union (IAU). This organization doesn't sell names for stars or any other celestial object, and doesn't recognize the names sold by any purported star-registry companies.
Stars are named according to internationally accepted rules. A few bright stars have widely known names that were given centuries years ago, such as Betelgeuse and Polaris (also called the North Star). But most stars have no proper name and never will. Instead, stars are assigned catalog numbers and are identified by their position in the sky.
Since the 1970s, various businesses have claimed to sell star names. But what these companies actually do is write your star name down in a book and randomly assign you a star. Some businesses suggest that your star name is official because the book that lists your star name is then registered with the copyright office of the U.S. Library of Congress. In reality, this doesn't confer legitimacy on your star name -- any book can be copyrighted and registered with the Library of Congress. Other companies say their list of registered star names will be kept for eternity in a secure vault or perpetual database for future generations. That may be true, but none of this means that any government, astronomical group, or space agency on Earth will refer to "your" star by "your" name.
The IAU disassociates itself from the practice of selling star names and says, "like true love and many other of the best things in human life, the beauty of the night sky is not for sale, but is free for all to enjoy."
The Buzzword for July 5th
tempest \TEM-pust\ noun
What does it mean?
1 : a violent storm
2 : a violent commotion : uproar
How do you use it?
While a wild tempest raged outside, we were happy to be cozy
and snug inside.
Are you a word wiz?
We want you to brainstorm about "tempest." "Tempest" traces
back to the Latin word "tempus." What do you think "tempus"
means?
A. time
B. space
C. speed
D. light
Answer:
This was a tricky one. The Latin word "tempus" means "time,"
and is the ancestor of such time-related words as
"contemporary" and "temporary." So how did a word for stormy
weather develop from a word meaning "time"? An important way
of measuring time is according to the season, a method people
frequently relied on long ago. And an important feature of the
various seasons is the weather. Some seasons are notable for
bringing extreme weather. From "tempus," Latin-speakers created
a word that brought all of these ideas together: "tempestus,"
which means "season," "weather," and "storm." "Tempestus" came
into English via Anglo-French as "tempeste," meaning "a violent
storm," and eventually became the modern word "tempest."
Today's Jigsaw Puzzle
CLICK HERE
That's all for today. Tune in tomorrow for more incredible stuff.
The following is what appeared in Monday's edition
In Today's Edition
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!
Born on July 4th
Geraldo Rivera (1943)
George Steinbrenner (1930)
Gina Lollobrigida (1927)
Neil Simon (1927)
Eva Marie Saint (1924)
Ann Landers (1918)
Abigail Van Buren (1918)
Mitch Miller (1911)
Gloria Stuart (1910)
George Murphy (1902)
Rube Goldberg (1883)
Calvin Coolidge (1872)
Baptist Dog
A strong Baptist family decided to buy a home and make everything in the house Baptist. They were going to make it look and feel Baptist through and through. So when they were finished they went to a pet shop to look for a Baptist dog.
They asked the owner, "Do you have a Baptist dog?"
Surprised, the pet shop owner thought about it for a while and then nodded, saying, "Yes... yes, I think we have a dog that will fit your description."
So the owner brought out the dog to the family, and the father said, "Let's see if this is a real Baptist dog." So the father said to the dog, "Go get a Bible."
And the dog ran over to a table, grabbed a Bible in its mouth, ran back to the man and plopped the book at his feet.
Impressed, the father continued, "Let's see if this dog knows its books of the Bible... Turn to Psalm 23".
The dog then opened the Bible with its snout and pawed through the pages to Psalm 23.
Very pleased, the father bought the dog and brought it home. The next day, the family had visitors. They showed their friends the Baptist dog and the things it could do.
Finally, the friends asked, "Well, can it do any other tricks that normal dogs do?"
The Baptist father wondered and said, "Hmm, I don't know. I've never tried." He then ordered the dog, "Heel."
Suddenly the dog leaped onto the father's lap and placed its paw on the man's head and started to pray.
"Wait a minute!" exclaimed the Baptist mother, "This dog isn't Baptist! It's Pentecostal!"
The Olden Girls
Today's useless fact - What world city attracts the most tourists?
According to the Travel Tips category, Paris, France, is the world's most popular tourist destination. Over 80 million foreigners visited France in 2004 and over 16 million of those foreigners visited Paris.
Paris and its surrounding suburbs, known as the Ile-de-France, boast a population of roughly 10.5 million people. Just over two million of those live in Paris proper. The three most popular tourist attractions are Disneyland Paris (12 million visitors last year), the Eiffel Tower (5.5 million), and the Louvre (5 million).
The top five travel destinations (in order) are France, Spain, the United States, Italy, and China. For American visitors, the top five destinations are Mexico, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.
Finally, the World Tourism Organization presents some cautiously optimistic statistics - for the first time in history, the number of travelers last year exceeded 750 million people. While Europe remains in first place, Asia claimed the number two spot over the Americas.
The Buzzword for July 4th
omelet \AHM-lut\ noun
What does it mean?
: beaten eggs cooked without stirring and served folded
in half
How do you use it?
Carole liked to fill her omelets with fresh seasonal
ingredients, such as asparagus in spring, zucchini in summer,
and fennel in fall.
Are you a word wiz?
We can trace "omelet" (which is also spelled "omelette")
back to its Latin roots in the word "lamina." What do you
think "lamina" means?
A. broken shell
B. hot meal
C. thin plate
D. yellow mush
Answer:
An omelet resembles a thin plate, and that is what "lamina"
means. The Romans used "lamella," a form of "lamina," to mean
"thin metal plate." French speakers borrowed the word as
"lemelle" and used it to mean "blade of a knife." Over time,
the French word became "alemelle," then "alumelle," and later
"alumette." It also acquired the meaning "dish made with
beaten eggs," since such a dish resembled a thin plate or
blade. In time, French speakers began to switch the "l" and
"m" sounds so that "alumette" became "amelette." It finally
became "omelette." The word entered English in the 1600s,
when an omelet was described as a "pancake of eggs."
Today's Jigsaw Puzzle
CLICK HERE
That's all for today. Tune in tomorrow for more incredible stuff.
